Author: Kim Cooper

L. Bruce Bryan is sharper than a serpent’s tooth–or so suggests the preliminary injunction granted today by Superior Court Judge Frank G. Swain, barring Bryan, a writer, from annoying, molesting or evicting his mother Mrs. Ethel Bryan for a period of six weeks, at which date the Bryans will reconvene in court to seek a legal ruling on their three-generation dispute.

Seems Ethel and her 17-year-old grandson (and adopted son) Bruce ponied up $1650 towards the purchase of a home at 6424 Riverton St., North Hollywood. L. Bruce, a writer, and his new wife Katherine put in $350 towards the total cost of $11,750.

Grandma and grandson moved in with the understanding that this would be their permanent residence, but the minority owners began a campaign of harassment, moving Ethel’s bed into a one-room building in back of the house, physically carrying her out of the house in February (she called the cops) and forcing her to sign a document agreeing to pay room and board in the amount of $60 a month until her $1650 stake in the house was exhausted. The last straw was when they changed the locks (on Mother’s Day!) thus denying her access to kitchen and bathroom and forcing her to withdraw from the property.

Through the case filed by Attorney Maurice M. Grudd, Ethel seeks a formal statement of her rights and a ban on further attempts by her son to dispossess her.

Before shooting himself in the head today, 29-year-old carpenter Rollin Albert Starkey told his mother-in-law, Mrs. Myrtle Foley, that he had choked her daughter Betty in their cabin near Lake Arrowhead. As if unsure that he could count on a woman to do anything, he then phoned police telling them much the same thing.

Investigators J.E. Hamilton and C.J. Bright of Harbor Police Station reported that Starkey confessed that several days earlier he had killed Mrs. Starkey while they were at their Dogwood Canyon cabin making repairs, and had returned to their home at 1610 N. Marine Ave., Wilmington yesterday. By the time officers arrived at the Marine Ave. apartment, Starkey was near death with a bullet in the brain; he died soon after at Wilmington Receiving Hospital.

San Bernardino Sheriff James W. Stocker sent Chief Criminal Deputy Harry Heap up to Dogwood Canyon to have a look. In the Starkey cabin, Heap discovered the deceased Mrs. Starkey, sprawled on the living room floor in an incongruous costume of playsuit, sandals and fur coat, a noose made from a pair of nylon stockings around her throat. There were no signs of a struggle in the cabin.

The cause and further circumstances of the murder and what Starkey had been doing since committing it remain mysterious. If Mrs. Foley knows anything more, she’s not talking.

John A. Gordon, 67, retired hardware merchant who came to Los Angeles from Chicago a decade ago, filed suit against the Los Angeles Turf Club today in Los Angeles Superior Court. He claims he was falsely arrested and maliciously prosecuted following a January 23 incident when Arcadia Police Officer William S. Orr and two race track detectives detained him at the track on charges of vagrancy.

At the time, Gordon says, he had more than $1000 in his possession. Gordon claims Orr & co. offered to drop the charges if he would agree they had probable cause to arrest him; when he refused, they countered that they would instead charge him with bookmaking, and did just that. When the case went to trial in Pasadena, Peace Justice J.R. Morton dismissed it for lack of evidence that Gordon had accepted a $6 bet.

Gordon is resident of 502 W. Maple St., Monrovia, painfully near to the scene of his humilation.

George Hornbeck, rancher, who in his youth drove the Imperial Valley stagecoach, was killed today when his car collided with one driven by Jesus Q. Arizaga, 22.

Passengers on the “O” line streetcar had their peaceful passage disturbed today when an automobile, estimated to be traveling 60 mph, smashed into the back of the trolley as Motorman Charles Carringer, 33, of 2451 3/4 Daly Street was about to pull away from a stop at College and North Main Streets.

Passenger Antonio V. Castillo, 30, of 618 S. Ferris Street, was killed instantly. The driver, Paul Z. Guerrero, 25, of 184 Darwin Street, was taken to the General Hospital prison ward, where he was treated for lacerations before being booked on a charge of manslaughter. Mr. Castillo has the posthumous distinction of being the county’s 300th traffic fatality.

In addition to our popular Black Dahlia T-shirts, we’ve added a line of mouse pads, mugs, tote bags, beer steins and baby bibs. Because as Nathan pointed out, “if there’s one thing I will not abide, it’s a baby spilling its beer on itself.” Nor should you.

The American Consule today stated that many American soldiers seeking permission to bring their German and Austrian fiancees home to the United States had applied too late and would be disappointed.

Under the Soldier-Fiancee Act which Congress passed last June, a former soldier was permitted to bring a woman he intended to wed into the U.S. up until July 1, 1947, where the woman could remain legally for up to three months as a nonimmigrant visitor. If the couple did not marry within that time, her status would lapse.

Almost 700 fiancees have entered the States, while 6000 other cases have been approved, are in process, or have already been denied, with more denials anticipated.

A Coroner’s Jury today returned a verdict of justifiable homicide in the case against Olin Bray, 53, of 11407 State Street, Lynwood. Last May 12, Bray was working in his garden while his daughter Zula and her husband, Virgil Lawson, 38, visited with Bray’s wife Veda. Hearing raised voices in the house, Bray ran in to find Lawson striking the women. Bray retrieved a revolver from under his pillow and fired two shots. These fatally struck Lawson, whose widow corroborated her father’s testimony before the jury today.

Mrs. Jessie Brink, 41, today lost her civil suit before Pasadena Superior Court Judge Paul Norse, charging unlawful eviction of herself and her 11 children from their residence at 2007 Hulbert St., South Pasadena, last June 27. The court ruled that owner Emily Stockton was within her rights to remove the Brinks, because their tenancy was more that of guests than of renters.

The children include 23-year-old Mrs. Vivian Cornellson, John, 18, Betty, 16, Richard, 12, Ruth, 10, Billy, 8, John, 6, Roy, 4, Connie, 3, Phyllis, 2, and Linda, 3 months. Betty used to have a twin brother, Bobby, but he drowned in 1946 while the family was in Colorado harvesting peaches.

The husband of the family, machinist James, says he is searching for a home within his means. For now, the Brinks’ relief check can be sent to General Delivery, Burbank, as the family remains officially homeless (not counting that 60-acre ranch they own back in Oklahoma).

Last Sunday, William Harold Evans was one of three San Quentin prisoners who walked away from a Modoc County road crew. FBI agents found him just two hours after his arrival in Los Angeles, at the home of Miss Alexie Goldworthy, 185 W. 39th Street. The convict, a self-styled osteopath serving time for forgery, had been corresponding with the lady from his prison cell.